


Incontrovertible

by Paeonia



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:45:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter did something to and in front of Daniel Sousa, and she's not sure what to make of it.</p><p>Inspired by advance pictures from Agent Carter Season 2 and a conversation with scullyssahnequarkbroetchen</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incontrovertible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scullyssahnequarkbroetchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyssahnequarkbroetchen/gifts).



 

 

By the time they get back to the house, she’s running on fumes and her feet are killing her but she still has enough energy to fetch her hat from the back seat and make her way up the front walk.

Mrs. Jarvis — Ana — meets them in the foyer. “Peggy?” she asks. “Edwin?” She rushes to embrace her husband. “What in the world…?”

“Please excuse me,” says Peggy. “It’s been a long day and I desperately need to change.”

Mr. Jarvis looks sympathetic. “When you’re ready, Miss Carter, I hope you’ll dine with us tonight.”

Ana nods. “Oh, yes. Take as much time as you need,” she says. 

“Thank you,” says Peggy. She leaves Mr. Jarvis to explain and hobbles out the back door to the little guest house.

She kicks off her shoes as soon as she opens the door. She picks them up and carries them to the bedroom.

She rather likes that red hat, so she’s pleased to see it’s not a complete wreck. She puts it in its box; she’ll assess the damage later. The hat does rather stand out, so it might be wise to have it restyled anyway.

She unzips the red dress — it will have to go to the cleaners; she puts it on a shelf in the closet. She takes off her stockings and carries them into the bathroom, where she checks under the sink. Sure enough, the ever-thoughtful Jarvises have left a box of soap flakes. She shakes some into the sink, fills it with cold water, and starts undressing. Slip, brassiere, girdle… it’s been a long, difficult, hot day and it shows. They all go into the sink with her stockings to soak.

And now it’s her turn. She puts some cold cream on her face and neck, turns on the water, and steps into the shower. For a long time she just stands there, letting the heat and dust and sweat sluice away in the cool water. It’s still unspeakably luxurious; it’s still barely a year since she was bathing out of an upturned helmet, tramping across Europe digging up the last remnants of Hydra.

Finally she feels more relaxed. She’s _here_ now, in the immaculate bathroom of this pretty little guest cottage, where cleanliness smells like shampoo and rose-scented soap — instead of _there_ , the morgue, with that horrible smell of chemical cleansers, and that horrible sight she isn’t going to let herself think about right now. _Here,_ the only things she would find on the floor would be the objects she placed there herself, or that fell off the table and came to rest: sensible, rational objects that did their duty and followed the laws of gravity and inertia. She shudders; it’s not because the water is cold.

Once she’s cooled off, she washes her hair and gives herself a good scrub. She dries off, wraps a towel around her hair, and puts on her dressing gown. The ritual is soothing: Rinse out the lingerie, squeeze them out gently and hang them to dry. Dusting powder. Scented lotion, with special attention to her poor feet.

She wiggles her toes. It’s amazing, she’s feeling so much better now, which is good, because she’s also starting to feel peckish. Dinner with the Jarvises is feeling downright possible, she’s looking forward to going.

She goes over to the closet. Thoughtful Ana had done a little shopping for her and had left her something called “hostess pajamas”. The name sounded ridiculous, but the garment itself… Peggy has to admit it was just the thing: utterly comfortable, but presentable enough for her to come to dinner.

She pins up her hair, covers it with a scarf, and puts on a little lipstick. Perfect. She puts on her most comfortable shoes and heads back across the patio to rejoin the Jarvises.

They’re not ready. Mr. Jarvis is who knows where — changing his clothes, perhaps, or tracking down some wayward marmosets. Ana is flitting back and forth between the kitchen and wherever Mr. Jarvis is and possibly another one or two places. She apologizes to Peggy and gives her a little plate of cheese and crackers, for which Peggy is grateful. Then she gives Peggy a gin and tonic, for which Peggy is desperately grateful.

Peggy takes a sip of her drink and walks over to the window. Now that she’s clean and comfortable, she’s ready to start thinking about the day’s events. Well, almost ready: she has a faint sense that something’s still missing. She finds herself looking to the door, as if she’s waiting for someone. But not Ana, not Mr. Jarvis…. And then it dawns on her: there’s a part of her that’s… that was unconsciously waiting for Daniel.

How very odd. The scene immediately plays in her mind: Daniel comes in, she offers him a drink, he accepts and goes over to the chairs by the window, she sits down across from him, he says something wry, they clink glasses, and they start talking over the case.

How easy and natural it seems. But where did this come from? There’d been no talk at all about his coming over; the idea of his coming over had never even crossed her mind. She’d come back here with Mr. Jarvis, and Daniel had gone back with that LAPD gentleman, gone back… somewhere.

Surely not back to the office? No, that’s probably exactly where he went. The part of her that was looking for him is disappointed, and now the rest of her is unsettled. She curls into the big upholstered chair by the window.

She’s been over and over it so many times, this whole question of what happened to “another time”; she _really_ doesn’t want to ruminate on it again. On the flight out, she’d focused on two things she knew about Daniel: he respected her work, and he wasn’t petty. She’d kept it in mind as she walked up the stairs — and then there he was.

But then it came out that Jack had lied, that Daniel hadn’t specifically asked for her, and that… that had hurt a little — not that she was entitled to Daniel specifically asking for her, or for Jack not choosing to send her — but when she gets back to New York, so help her God Jack Thompson is a dead man —

But Daniel had been cordial, and then they got to work and it was almost like old times, before the Leviathan case, when they’d first become allies, except now they have nobody to roll their eyes at any more (well, no, there’s always Jack Thompson — good old Jack — still a dead man walking.) Now Daniel is the Chief and she’s the experienced agent from New York.

Except back in New York she never went around _grabbing Daniel’s arm_. (Of course, that could have been because they were never in the field, much less in the field at the same time, much less standing next to each other seeing… what they saw… on the morgue floor. But _still_.) She cringed: his crutch arm, too.

She took a sip of her drink. Had he noticed? They were all so shocked — Maybe he hadn't noticed, it couldn’t have been for more than a split second. It just happened. They saw it, they all yelped and jumped, and she realized that she’d… done that and taken her hand off his arm and started walking around to get a better look.

She’s pretty sure Detective Henry didn’t see anything. That would have been the last thing either she or Daniel needed — the lady agent in her pretty frock grabbing the Chief’s arm in fright — ugh.

So that left Daniel. Oh, dear God she hopes he didn’t notice. He’d never throw it in her face; he’d probably never say a thing, and that might be even worse. What would he think? She didn’t dare let herself consider it. She’d been over and over it enough — what happened to “another time”? Did he have any feelings for her, or had she completely misread him? and in the end it just doesn’t matter, there are dozens of reasons a man might honest-to-goodness fancy a woman and never choose to act on it, starting with its being… just a passing fancy.

 _And what does it say about you, Peggy Carter, that the idea of being someone’s mere passing fancy so ruffles your feathers?_ She chuckles sourly at herself and takes another sip of her drink as she remembers emptying a gun into Steve’s new shield. Steve had teased her about it eventually, but she hasn’t forgotten the humilation and fury she’d felt. Maybe the sticking point wasn’t being someone’s passing fancy; it was finding out you were when you’d hoped — when you’d believed — that you were more.

And she refused to give any thought to the question of whether she fancied Daniel Sousa in passing or at all, because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. “Another time” never happened, he took off for California and then he was gone.

But she was _not_ in the habit of grabbing at men’s arms like that. Ghastly sights were nothing new; during her months with the 107 th, emaciated corpses in the woods were just the beginning, good _Lord_ the things they’d found at Hydra labs — and she hadn’t gone around clutching at colleagues' arms like a damsel in distress in a movie.

So why had she done it today?  Somehow she has the sense that she wouldn’t have reached out to the LAPD detective like that. Or maybe to anyone else.

And she can’t lie to herself: in that instant, the feeling under her hand of that soft jacket, and of the strong arm inside it, was very reassuring. She wasn’t alone, she was with someone, someone she could rely on, someone who knew she was strong and wouldn’t laugh at her for being startled.

Someone — she looks around and over to the door — someone that some part of her had been hoping to see this evening. It really does feel… incomplete.

Maybe she could call him — does Howard have a secure line? she wonders — and then she realizes she has no idea where Daniel is, or what he’s doing. It bothers her. But then, it’s not something she really needs to know, is it? If she really needs to call him, she can go through the office, and if he really wants to talk to her, he knows how to reach her.

For a moment she’s back in the lab in London, the gun’s in her hand — and then she puts the safety back on, puts the gun on the table, turns, and walks away.  There’s none of the burning jealousy she’d felt then. There’s only… resignation.

A step sounds at the door. She looks up: Mr. Jarvis is coming into the room.

“Miss Carter? I do hope you found everything satisfactory in the guest cottage, and that you’re feeling refreshed after the day’s activities.”

She smiles and stands up. “Thank you, Mr. Jarvis. It couldn’t be more comfortable.”

“Excellent. Shall we, then? Ana cooked tonight, we’ll be having chicken véronique….”

He steps back to let her pass. She can’t help looking back over her shoulder before she leaves the room. But no, the party is complete. She is the only guest for dinner tonight.

She’ll see Daniel in the morning, she reminds herself. She turns her attention to following Mr. Jarvis. It’s time for dinner.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So: "Hostess pajamas": I knew that Peggy would want to change into something comfortable, but since she was having dinner with the Jarvises it would need to be some kind of clothing (as opposed to sleeping pajamas and a bathrobe)
> 
> I remembered hearing something about "hostess pajamas" from way back, so I hit the Google and discovered that yes, they were a thing in the 30's and 40s, and not just for well-off people at the resort; there were patterns for them for home sewing. (I think they were also called "lounge wear" or "lounging pajamas.") So hostess pajamas it was, and I kept writing. But then I came across a couple of actual garments from the '40s:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> What do you think?
> 
>  
> 
> When I first saw clips from that scene, I'd thought Peggy was wearing some kind of dedicated exercise clothing, but now (and especially with the additional stills from that scene)... are those Peggy's hostess pajamas?


End file.
